


Electricity Is in Your Soul

by stillwaitingforaliens



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Father Figures, Found Family, Gen, Implied Relationship, Robot/Human Relationships, Slow Burn, computer talk, does this even count as slow burn/simmer, half of those characters just make brief appearances, i don’t know how the police actually work, investigative work, more like a slow simmer, or friendships really, so much computer talk
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-18 00:44:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15473751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stillwaitingforaliens/pseuds/stillwaitingforaliens
Summary: “Ok, I get it. But three things things: one, this sounds a lot like corporate espionage; two, androids are tens upon tens of millions of lines of proprietary, compressed code, hundreds terabytes of stored experience, and nearly a tera of sensor data; three, I’m a computer forensics tech, not a coroner.” And not a miracle worker either. It would take weeks to do a complete evaluation of a defective android.In the investigation of a century, it helps to have someone knowledgeable to get their hands up in the guts of the victims. Ally happens to be just that person. She's in over her head, but up to the challenge of deviant androids. What she's less prepared for is her own emotions and the slowly growing ones of her new partners.





	1. Beautiful, Ghostly, Blue Portal

**Author's Note:**

> This is not a “song fic" (holy cow, I dated myself), but song lyrics are significant to the story in places. A recording of the song(s) will be linked with the relevant chapter so you can listen along. 
> 
> I had the privilege of seeing Steam Powered Giraffe live recently, and since then, the songs have been stuck in my head. Since the band is composed of robots, I figured the songs would work particularly well for a fic about androids. I claim no ownership of the song lyrics themselves, that copyright goes to SPG themselves.

 

**November 6, 2038**

**10:28:06 AM**

* * *

It was the phone that roused me from my sleep. The constant beep-beep. On a Saturday morning of all things. Probably a spam call. They had become the background of my life recently. The blocked numbers list was longer than my contacts at that point. I rolled over, about to hang up on whoever was on the line without even looking at the caller ID.

Lucky that I didn't.

“Hello, sir?” My voice was rough from my sleep-dry throat.

“Mendoza, get down here. We've got some...evidence that needs to be evaluated.”

“It's supposed to be my day off. Can it at least wait until noon?” It had been late night, up with a red ice dealer’s phone until three am. And I hadn't had a day off in almost two weeks, which was bordering on criminal, even if the union and regulations did allow it, which they very strictly didn't.

“No. Now.” It wasn’t one of his trademark growls, but Captain Fowler left no more room for me to wiggle out of it.

I'd have to drive instead of taking the train, wear and tear on my ancient vehicle I didn't want, but would save me in the long run. “Give me thirty minutes, I'll be there.”

I didn’t shower, do my hair, or anything. I just stumbled out of bed, changed into the most comfortable, yet presentable, clothes I owned and headed to my car. I fixed my hair at a red light, pulling it out of its nighttime style and into a high, puffy ponytail. The plan had been for a fresh wash day and a much needed deep conditioning treatment, but that wasn't going to happen now. Curls were never cooperative unless freshly conditioned, and mine were no exception.

It took me thirty three minutes, from the time of the call, to get to my already open office door. I looked like hell, and felt just as bad. I had skipped coffee, breakfast, anything and everything that most humans needed to start their day.

“Excuse the language, Sir, but what the hell?” Captain Fowler and another officer were bringing what looked like a dead body into my lab. The near broom closet of an annex to the big lab where two of us cracked password and decrypted memory.

“We need whatever you can pull from this.”

“Sir, that’s an android,” I stated the obvious.

“Yes. And it murdered someone.” He was having none of it.

Oh. _Oh_. This was a deviant android, probably relevant to that rumored android investigation we were taking on. And it looked like it died in our custody. Shit. I was sure CyberLife would be so pleased with us. “So what the hell?”

“We have twenty four hours before we have to turn this over to CyberLife. And that’s if I can keep them off our backs that long.”

“Ok, I get it. But three things things: one, this sounds a lot like corporate espionage; two, androids are tens upon tens of millions of lines of proprietary, compressed code, hundreds terabytes of stored experience, and nearly a tera of sensor data; three, I’m a computer forensics tech, not a coroner.” And not a miracle worker either. It would take weeks to do a complete evaluation of a defective android, and I knew it. Biocomponents to analyze for potential flaws, every bit of data actively stored on it or dumped to the CyberLife cloud servers. And the complexity just grew the longer the android had been in use. The time needed increased nearly factorially.

“One, we’re DPD, and the data off it is evidence, so it’s covered. Two, you’re the one who paid for grad school with a CyberLife internship. Three, get to work, you don’t have a lot of time. I’ll send some help once it arrives.” The Captain and other officer left, leaving me with the ‘deviancy’ as the only clue to what I was looking for.

I sighed. People who didn’t work in a technology field always expected miracles. Complete websites in six hours, make complicated apps in a week, or disect an entire android in 24 hours.  “Hey, Jack?”

“Yeah?”

I fished some cash from my desk drawer. “Run to the corner store and get me a pack of energy drinks, ok? The dragon fruit ones. And maybe a hot dog or something.”

Jack nodded. “You are not doing this on your own. For the next 24 hours, I’m guessing neither of us are sleeping.” He laughed bitterly.

“Thanks.” I pulled another twenty from my drawer. “Grab yourself some energy drinks and get us some snacks.”

“On it, boss.” He stuck his tongue out at me.

 _Whatever._ He had three years of seniority on me, but this lab room was always a free for all. I pulled open my personal cable drawer. Like the rest of my desk, it was a huge mess. “Get out of here Jack. I want my dragonfruit Monster and some kind of breakfast,” I said, and started pulling connecting cables and converters from the tangled knots. I hadn’t been in nearly enough of a rush to get here, so time was of essence whether CyberLife was breathing down our necks or not.

* * *

It was late, almost the end of what was our expected shift when help finally arrived. The lifeless corpse of the deviant android sat propped against the wall with about thirty cables coming out of it, connected to every spare machine we had been able to find. It was still a macabre sight, made more morbid by the cables draped everywhere. The lab was a mess, with a stack of freshly filled drives of pure data from the android waiting to be reviewed by us, the whiteboards filled with notations written in our nearly unintelligible scrawl, and crumpled snack and lunch wrappers overflowing our tiny waste bin. Jack and I were each two and a half energy drinks in, a couple of hastily written analysis scripts running on our computers, and enjoying a much needed five minute break, flicking rubber bands at each other and laughing while new data was loaded. Jack had become a brother I had never had, and we behaved accordingly in downtime. His favorite band was blasting through his speakers, the ones he salvaged from his father’s trash, big, classic, 1990’s tan-grey computer speakers that ran off wire connections, not bluetooth, so they had excellent sound.

The door opened, and Jack shouted “Watch out!” but it was too late. My poorly aimed rubber band hit the guest square in the shoulder. I blushed and sank into my chair.

“I’m sorry!”

The guest stooped to pick up the tie. “Don’t worry, you couldn’t have hurt me with this. My name is Connor, I'm the android sent by CyberLife. Captain Fowler indicated that I help you with your investigation.”

Jack looked at me, eyebrows raised.

I glanced at the tag on Connor’s jacket. RK800. Not a model of normal officer. “How do we know you’re not gonna just run off with our evidence?” I couldn’t help the suspicion.

“I work here. I was sent to assist investigating all incidents involving deviant androids.”

I looked back at Jack, still skeptical, but at least minorly assured.

“Well, Connor, make yourself comfy, because it’s gonna be a long night.” Jack, ever the friendly one of the two of us.

“I have no need for comfort. What have you done so far?”

“I’ve got a complete dump of local experience data going, because that probably would have been the most likely start of ‘deviancy’, but since the neural nets and learning algos are constantly being rewritten by the results of experience, I’m dumping that too, going backward in time. I’d love to be able to get some sensor records, but there’s only so much we can do at one time. I’ve got a script running to try to compare the dates of major algo rewrites to an experience file of one gig or more. I already got the logs several hours ago, but I couldn’t find anything that specifically indicated deviancy.”

Connor looked impressed. “You know the inner workings of androids reasonably well.”

“She was a CyberLife intern for, like, four years,” Jack said, picking up rubber bands from the floor. “She’s also one of our best comp forensic specialists. She just thinks like that.” Right then, his phone buzzed. “Shit, it’s Evan. Says his dad is in the hospital again. Think you can hold this down?”

“I’ll be fine. He needs you there.”

“You’re the best Ally, I owe you one.” Jack grabbed his coat and was out the door before one could blink.

Connor sat down at my desk. “You have a good start, but I can read far faster than you can. Given that I was the one to extract a confession from that android, I can narrow the window for what I’d like to look for and see if I can gather data useful for the investigation.”

“Knock yourself out.”

“Officer Mendoza--”

“It’s just Miss. Not officer. Besides no one calls me that. I’m just Ally.” The cloner beeped. “I’ve got a fresh set of files, dated back six months or so. Want to take a look?”

“I’ll start with the set you have up. Five months ago. Run your analysis scripts.”

Many hours later, we were no closer to determining anything. The android was clearly and regularly abused. But anyone would have known that from the physical marks all over his body. We had discussed another deviant that he and Detective Anderson had found in the late afternoon, trying to piece things together to narrow search windows and improve algorithms. Newly scrawled notes had taken the place of older ones. Next to my spiraling cursive was Connor’s perfect print, even and neat. In the center of the board was “rA9?”.

It was three AM--again, and I was running out of energy and energy drinks.

Connor groaned. “We've been at this for hours and so far, we've got nothing. This is incredibly...frustrating.”

“You can say that again.”

He frowned, confused. “There’s just nothing that looks like a definitive cause for deviancy. Other than the abuse, which shouldn’t be a cause by itself. Hundreds of androids are abused every day.”

“Was there anything in particular about the abuse of this one?”

“It was particularly violent abuse, but other than that, nothing.”

“Maybe it’s a random variation in neural nets gone horribly wrong?” I asked from my place on the floor, flopped on the blanket I kept stashed in a desk drawer. Connor had allowed me a thirty minute nap at two, but I hadn’t actually slept, and I hadn’t gotten up from my nest just yet. “Like cancer does to DNA?”

Connor frowned. “There are two hundred, forty-three known cases of deviancy. That’s orders of magnitude less than the estimated cancer statistics.”

“Ok, but what about the really bad cancers? Or paranoid schizophrenia? The numbers are way lower on those.”

“Perhaps. But the first known cases are all here in Detroit.” I watched him pull a quarter from his pocket and roll it over his knuckles. The motion was mesmerizing, soothing my scattered brain. I pulled my own worry stone from my desktop and ran my fingers over it. If he could stim, then so would I.

 “We have the most androids per capita here. If something were ever to start, it would be here.”

“True. But this one and the one from the afternoon both found this ‘rA9’.”

 **"** Statistical anomaly?”

“Highly unlikely. I’m a detective, I’m not allowed to believe in coincidence. And there’s too many coincidences.”

“So we’re back to square one, other than ‘rA9’.” I got up added another circle with a connecting line to the massive web on the dry erase board, ’Detroit’. “There’s just not enough data from only one deviant.” I sighed. “Well, there’s another several weeks of data dumping, and then we can try another algo, some other comparison program or something.” I walked back to my blanket nest, gestured upwards and beckoned. “Come here, tell me about yourself.” Until that moment, I'd almost forgotten he was an android. The conversations had been too fluid and easy, too natural and informative. Now, I had gone and asked a stupid question out of curiosity.

He looked at me from over the desk, one eyebrow slightly arched. “Why?”

“Because if you don’t keep talking to me, I’ll pass out.”

He frowned again. “I told you that I’d be fine and you could get some sleep.”

I grinned, wide and slightly crazy. I was sleep deprived and it was starting to show. “I don’t want to. I’m also too fueled on caffeine, so I won’t sleep well at all.”

“Very well, what do you want to know?” He got up and sat with awkward grace on the floor next to my blanket nest.

I thought for a moment. I knew his name, I knew he was insane fast at processing, I knew he was oblivious as hell to human actions. I knew he had a boyish face that made adorably awkward expressions. “How long have you been around humans?”

“Today was my first day. There was a day in August, but it didn’t exactly end well.”

The way he said it, cold and removed, was unnerving. It was a simple fact, but he still seemed completely dissociated from it. “Can I ask what happened?”

He looked up at the ceiling, the blue lights circling in his LED with flashes of yellow. “There was a deviant. He took a girl hostage. I tried to negotiate him down, and I almost did. I saved the girl, but…”

“You died.” Sadness crept into my voice.

He looked back down at me. “I succeeded in my mission.” Another simple fact, as if everyone had a mission. Maybe we did, but the human mission was never as clear cut.

“You _died_.”

He looked puzzled. “I can’t die, Miss Mendoza.”

“It’s Ally.”

I frowned. Androids didn’t consider it as death. Regular uploads to the cloud would keep them up to date. Parts could be reattached, and their bodies often rebuilt. Their memories redownloaded. But the idea of Connor on a rooftop, blue Thirium leaking out of a wound on his chest, chilled me. He was too human and that was death, as far as I was concerned. Then again, I was also so attached to my roomba that I deliberately swept crumbs from the table onto the floor or even left chips on the floor so it could have something to do.“You can come back from the dead at your most recent save point, like a video game. Still died.”

“I suppose.” He shrugged, the light from his jacket shifting in the dim room with the movement.

“I’m sorry. That’s gotta be something that just messes a person up.” Before I had even thought about it, I had rested a hand on his knee.

He smiled slightly, “Your concern is not really needed, but I appreciate it. What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Tell me something about yourself.” He smiled at me, a real smile full of enthusiasm, with his eyes slightly crinkling at the corners. I wasn’t even aware androids could show that expression.

It was disarming. The kind of smile that would have convinced me to jump in the deep end of the pool, even if I couldn’t really swim, because there were arms waiting to catch me. “Anything in particular you want to know?”

He paused, the little blue circle of lights whirring.

“How about this. What do you know about me? I know that brain of yours gathers everything.”

“You like video games; you have a figure of Zelda on your desk. You’re a rather quiet person. You’re casual and relaxed; your outfit, and the rubber band wars. You’re very smart, CyberLife internships are hard to come by, but also disorganized. And you love your father.” He pointed towards the pictures on my desk board.

“You’re good. Anything you’d like to know?”

He smiled again. “Do you like dogs?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ally: ↑↑ Warm
> 
>  
> 
> 1) An incredible thank you to Precursor, whose "Deviant Behavior" was the kick in the pants and inspiration I needed to start writing again in earnest, and actually focus on finishing this story. If you haven't read that, put down my story and go read it now.
> 
> 2)I have messed with the timeline of the story significantly. The story moves insanely fast, even if I get it: seven days of the Battle of Jericho (Thanks, Precursor, for pointing that out). I slowed it down because it makes a little more sense and to allow for Ally and Connor to have more than an hour or two here and there.
> 
> Ally needs sleep. She can’t actually run on coffee, Monster Rehab, and Mtn. Dew. *laughs as I wrote this while also concrunching on cosplay*


	2. Let's Go! (Systems Ready)

**November 7, 2038**

**2:15:25 PM**

 

* * *

Bleary eyed, I helped Connor move the android back to the evidence locker, where CyberLife could pick him up for their analysis. The cold air of the room added to the feeling that I had just played coroner. It was like a meat locker, and goosebumps stood on my arms. Another android hung on the rack, a hollow corpse.  They were just androids, lines of code contained in plastic, but after hours with Connor, I couldn’t help but wonder what their lives had been like. Even before going deviant, had they had preferences? Stories they liked to tell or hear? Colors or patterns that they liked to see? Did the first one like dogs or cats or horses?

I needed another energy drink, or better yet, a long nap. Just a break to stop these philosophical thoughts.

I brushed my hands off on the other side of the door, trying to shake the feeling that I had touched a dead creature, even if was never technically alive. “Thank you, Connor. You really helped. Even if all we have is ‘rA9’ and abuse to go off of. I’m sure you’ll find something more."

“I should thank you. You knew what to do to expedite the process, and already had all the data organized. I think we make a good team.” He gave that small little smile again.

I smiled back. “Thanks.” We really had built a lovely rapport during our almost twenty hours together. A good start for any working relationship, and I suspected this would not be the last I saw of him.

“Can I get you a cup of coffee? You look tired.” He looked so eager, like a chance to help me get a cup of coffee was a once in a lifetime experience.

I doubted it would be. I had a feeling I’d get to be coroner and forensicist for at least one more android. “I feel tired. I’ve been up for”--I ran a quick calculation--“ 28 solid hours on less than six hours of sleep, and I’m not a college kid anymore.” I winced internally, remembering the days without sleep working with my senior capstone team on our project. There was an energy I had back then that I’d love to have back during times like I was currently going through.

Connor led me back upstairs towards the break room. “I’ll get you a cup and then ask if you can go home for the day.”

“You don’t have to, besides, I have other things to work on.”

“Yesterday was supposed to be your first day off in thirteen days. And you tend to work long hours.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “Are you stalking me, Connor?” I kept my voice light, hoping that he’d pick up on the teasing.

“I look up the records of people I work with. And you need sleep.”

Of course he’d miss the teasing. “Coffee first.”

“Coffee first, then.” His features lightened.

“Two creams, one sugar.”

“Very well.”

He lifted the pot, the split second pause of analysis stopping it. He poured it all down the sink before I could object. “I’m going to make a new one.”

“You’re making me fresh coffee? I feel special.” I opened the box of donuts on the table and picked one out with chocolate frosting and sprinkles.

“There was little left and it was clearly cold.”

I simply smiled. _Oblivious android._

“Looks like the plastic asshole got himself a friend!”

I tried to shrink into the empty space between the table top and the floor. Gavin Reed was not someone I wanted to deal with in my exhausted state. Since my first day here, he had been an annoyance at best and a bully at worst. I didn't know what I did to him, just that he enjoyed making fun of me. Clearly, that bullying tenancy extended to making Connor a victim as well. And in my exhausted state, I'd probably start crying or punch him. Not that I knew how to throw a particularly good punch.

“Trying to hide, nerd?”

“Detective Reed, I believe it would be best if you left Miss Mendoza alone. She has been up for far longer than is recommended.”

“Shut up.” Reed turned full towards me. “I wasn’t aware you like plastic.”

 _He's nicer than you,_ I thought, but ignored him.

I felt a protective hand come to lay along my back. Connor’s, of course. I guess spending hours together in the closet of a lab that was my office had done something. A small surge of confidence spiraled through me. I had someone at my back this time. A strong someone. The exact kind of person I wanted when the middle school bullies tried to tear me down, when I got punched in the stomach and thrown into locker room walls. “Leave me alone, Reed.” My voice was tiny.

“What was that?”

“I said, ‘Piss off’. Unless you want me to report you and add to your file, which I hear is getting a bit big.” My voice was stronger this time, the threat serious, even if I there was the barest shaking in it.

He wandered off, muttering something about androids and probably something about me. Connor went to pour me the first cup from the pot and returned.

I sipped at the piping hot coffee. It soothed my frayed nerves and my soul. Coffee, one of the three main components of my blood, along with energy drinks and Mountain Dew. A cup of coffee and then the drive home and straight to bed. I needed that sleep.

I was fantasizing about my plush comforter and soft mattress when I was abruptly interrupted. “Mendoza! A word, please.”

I sighed. “No rest for the wicked.”

One of his brows lowered slightly and he blinked several times, an expression I had come to gather was him looking up a figure of speech. I left him like that.

I opened the glass door and sat down. “Captain, I'm really tired, sir,” I said, a quiet warning tone in my voice.

“Didn’t you once say you loved puzzles?” At least he wasn’t doing his normal booming voice, being considerate of my tired state.

“That was my interview. Three years ago.”

He reached for a box on a side table of his desk. “You’ll be helping solve one of the biggest puzzles in the department from now until its solved. You’re gonna be with Connor and Lieutenant Anderson on the deviant androids case.”

“Me?” I would never lie, I always wanted to solve a mystery, be a detective. But my range of experience was small cybercrime, not homicide and murder. More importantly, when the moment actually came, I was scared. Fear of rejection, of failure, of being incompetent sent years of social anxiety alarms blaring, claxons in my mind banging ugly notes.

“You’re the one with the most experience with androids’ inner workings other than the actual android on the case.”

“Sir, I was an intern. I spent the majority of those years doing testing and quality assurance.” I could barely keep myself from stuttering.

“And the graduate thesis you did was nothing?”

Right, the master’s thesis. I didn’t have money or sponsorship for my doctorate, so it wasn’t as detailed as I wanted, but two years of analyzing the details of AI self modification and helping my advisor design a product that could spawn threads to analyze an encrypted file had resulted in a 200 page document that helped me get hired.

“Yeah, but that was more about the applications of some of Kamski’s AI premises towards computer security.”

“You have more knowledge on the topic than anyone else here. We need every extra mind on this.” He pushed the box in his hand across the desk towards me. “Everything you need is in that box. ID, badge, all that stuff.”

I was incredulous. “You’ve got to be kidding me. I’m not an officer! I didn’t go to the academy or do anything, and now you want me to be one?” Disrespectful to all the officers who did graduate, I thought, to bring a total newbie onto the scene for one of the most high-profile cases ever. There had to be a rule, a procedure, something the Captain was violating, anything to save my anxiety-riddled brain.

“Not an officer; until the end of this case, you’re basically ‘Detective Mendoza’. Consider it a temporary promotion.”

“All due respect sir, but I’d be shit out there. I don’t do dead bodies, or shoot outs, or anything.” Stalling, trying to make this nightmare mashed with dream end.

“You’re only out there if those two”--he jerked his thumb towards the desks of Connor and Anderson--“deem they need you. But if you go out there, you'll need the badge and ID.”

I sipped more coffee, and latched onto another idea. “Isn’t Anderson the one with the….discipline issue? He’s gonna hate being saddled with the newbie.”

“He doesn’t have a choice. Get going.”

I stood up, box in hand, and shakily headed for the door. “Wait, does this mean I’ll get paid Detective rate, including overtime, as long as this case is going?” Maybe there’d still be a silver lining to this situation.

“Of course, but you’ll have to work detective hours. Get. Going.”

I left, heart pounding. The door closed behind me and I tried to take a deep breath to calm myself. Advice from a years ago session came to mind: fake it until you make it. I’d never make it, but I could fake it for a while. Looking up, my eyes scanned for the desks of my new partners. At least Anderson wasn’t there at the moment, but Connor was, quietly working. I walked straight to his desk.

“Hey.”

“Hello, Miss Mendoza.” He was smiling again, but it was half smirk.

Pieces clicked. I frowned. “You did this?” I shook the box.

“I sent a message last night to Captain Fowler. I indicated that you are very capable and would be of use on this case.”

“He gave me a temporary ‘promotion’. I don’t think Lieutenant Anderson will like this. He’s now saddled with an idiot.”

Connor’s face fell. “You’re not an idiot."

“I’m not a detective, either!”

“What’s going on?”

I turned. Hank Anderson had returned, striding over to the desk. “G-good afternoon, Lieutenant.”

“You’re from...comp forensics, right?  What are you doing here?”

Before I could stumble out a response, Connor came to the rescue. “I asked Captain Fowler to change her assignment for the duration of our investigation. She’s very well informed on android programming and procedure.”

“So a subject matter expert?”

I nodded. That was a good way of putting it, much better than what Fowler said. I still felt out of my depth, but less out of my league. Working as a consultant I could make sense of, being a detective, not so much.

“You don’t count?”

“I’m programmed. She did the programming.” 

“ _You_ programmed him?”

I shook my head. This was already getting out of hand.  “No, I just…” I took another deep breath. “I worked as a Cyberlife intern for four years. I did testing, quality assurance, and did write a couple subroutines for the AI, but I never touched a prototype.”

He looked resigned. “I guess you can stick around, for now. But don't get any ideas.”

“Yes, sir.”

Hank took a seat, pulled up his cup of coffee.  “What do you know so far?”

I sketched out the rough details of the case that Connor had told me last night. The first deviant’s suicide, the second deviant’s strange behavior, rA9.

“There’s a few more things, but you can read up on those. In your ‘expert’ opinion,” he finger quoted the word, “what’s going on?”

“Lieutenant, I don’t have enough data to extrapolate. ‘rA9’ is some kind of deity figure, but how two separate androids came to that conclusion I don’t know. Virus? Randomized calculation? Collusion?”

“Extrapolate?” Anderson shook his head, stray hairs shifting with the movement. “You’re as bad as him. What do you know about deviancy itself?”

“A recent development in the android world, and extremely isolated, with only two hundred, forty three cases on file in the immediate area.” Connor’s eyebrows lifted, surprised I remembered the number so clearly. “My theory is that androids start emulating emotions like fear, anger, or hostility, things they aren’t programmed to do, as the result of conflicting instructions. Cyberlife androids obey the classic three laws--”

“You really are as bad as him,” the Lieutenant cut me off. “English, basic fucking English, please.”

“There's a book, _I, Robot,_ written by Asimov almost ninety years ago, which outlines the three principles that Kamski followed in the base structure of all his AIs: a robot may not harm a human or allow a human to come to harm through inaction; a robot follows the orders of humans, except if it causes harm to human; a robot must protect its it's own existence, unless it would result in harming humans or disobeying orders. Kamski made the second law, following orders, the chief of the structure, since there are combat androids. However, as an android is a fully aware AI, not a limited one like most in the book, it can also choose somewhat freely how to respond. Follow?” I hoped I wasn’t babbling. Nervous babble was a horrible habit of mine.

“I think.”

“Given that androids constantly write and rewrite segments of their programming, it’s possible that the influence of Asimov’s first and second laws are further altered. In the event that an android feels threatened, conflicting instructions based around the three laws begin to arise. The processors can’t make an appropriate choice, no single thread is able to break gridlock, so the AI kills them all, but it also has to overwrite a segment of its own programming to try to prevent it from recurring. It can become a recursive cycle, possibly leading to behavior deviating from the first two laws: to protect humans and follow orders.”

From the corner of my eye, I thought I saw Connor _beaming_ , as if proud of me.

“So, what you’re saying is it takes more than one incident to create a deviant?”

“I’m saying I suspect so, sir. I suppose a single, strong enough event could be cause for so many cycles of recursion to cause a break.”

Anderson’s eyes narrowed. “You know a lot about these things.”

“My graduate thesis was a study of AI applications to the realms of computer and network security, and using AI to backtrack through a user’s files to find relevant data to a breach.”

Anderson waved his hand dismissively. “I’m just going to pretend to I understand what you said. You can share space with Connor when you’re up here, but you’re probably better in your own office.”

Connor spoke up. “She won’t have the permissions to access the necessary files from her terminal. I’ll contact IT and see if we can’t get a mobile terminal with needed permissions set up here.”

“Fine, whatever.” The lieutenant turned back to his terminal.

I sat in the chair across from Connor. “You could probably just have IT correct the permissions on my terminal downstairs.”

He shook his head, eyes shut. The motion was somehow gentle, as if he was correcting an errant child. “I’d prefer to have you here. Lieutenant Anderson will too, once he realizes you are an asset to the team. He’d be annoyed if he had to go downstairs every time he needed to talk to you.”

“If you insist."

“While we wait for IT, perhaps you’d like to go over the recent case files on deviants?”

I slid around the work table, dragging the chair with me, and settled in front of Connor’s terminal. Save three of the most recent cases, starting back in August, most cases of deviancy reflected an escape mentality, not a hostile mentality with a desire to harm humans. Interesting.

Particularly interesting to me was the unknown model and serial number of Carl Manfred’s android. With androids everywhere, most people could identify the majority of models, and two officers had reported to the scene. It had been destroyed at the scene, so the officers hadn't pulled the serial number from it. It wasn't sent to my lab, which meant either I wasn’t supposed to see it, or it was rendered completely useless for analysis. Something told me the reason was the former, given the other points, and that Manfred had been in possession of a prototype. I noted all this on my tablet, and linked the note to the web of thoughts I was creating.

  
IT set up my mobile terminal, and I moved into the new space. I took a deep breath. _Here we go_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry it took me so long to update. I attended a major convention out of town, and that took the wind out of me. 
> 
> I don't really have an update schedule planned, since I'm so busy, but they should be more regular from here on out.
> 
> And if anyone feels like soothing my social anxiety and rejection sensitive dysphoria, leave a comment about one thing you liked.

**Author's Note:**

> Please bear with me, as this is my first time posting to AO3. I haven't written anything of note since the fanfiction.net was still active. (My old work is there, same username but with spaces.)


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